


#NotAWalkingZombie

by CycloneRachel



Category: DC Super Hero Girls (Cartoon 2019)
Genre: (canon divergent until Alex appears in canon), (she's canon in my heart), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Study, Friendship, Gen, Light Angst, Mentions of Superman, Mentions of other characters - Freeform, One Shot, Sisters, Spoilers for Previous Episodes, spoilers for The Good The Bad and the Bizarre
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-17
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:07:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21827212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CycloneRachel/pseuds/CycloneRachel
Summary: Kara defeats Bizarro-Supergirl.It's not as easy as it sounds- but at least she has her friends, and another visitor, by her side as she recovers.
Relationships: Alex Danvers & Kara Danvers
Comments: 4
Kudos: 28





	#NotAWalkingZombie

**Author's Note:**

> guess who's back on her Kara character study game? that's right, your girl Rachel. I promise I'm going to write about characters other than Kara in this show eventually (I actually have quite a few scenarios I want to work on) and I was going to write about Crisis or another AU I've been writing for, but this episode was interesting and gave me some good stuff to work with so I changed my plans! 
> 
> (also I hope I wrote Kara and Alex in-character. but then again that's a thing I'm worried about not doing well no matter what I write)

Kara was prepared to do what was necessary.

For years, she’d suffered through her bad reputation, lived down to it in a lot of ways (mostly because that was what was expected of her, even though, deep down, a part of her yearned to live up to the legacy of the House of El. The legacy that, unlike her cousin, she’d actually learned at a young age, had drilled into her by her parents- and even her grandfather, who’d lived without it for many years and had to fight for.)

Kara figured fighting for her family’s name was just as important as actually having it in the first place, and as much as she resented Kal-El for getting to Earth first, she also resented him for having it too easy. He’d grown up on Earth, was functionally human, didn’t know firsthand what it felt like to see- for example- her mother fighting General Zod, not being sure if she was going to live through it, just barely escaping and knowing that one day, she’d have to represent her mother in a rematch against Zod and his lieutenants.

And she, unlike Clark, was able to succeed- but not alone, taking _El Mayarah_ to its logical conclusion. Whatever happened, after that, she knew she could face and come back from it alive, as long as she had her friends by her side.

But that incident, a few months later, led to her considering what it had been like before she had her friends. When she was still in Smallville, having not yet moved with her family to Metropolis, and there were several mysterious accidents that fell on her shoulders.

Because surely, nobody else had her enormous strength, nobody else was at the scene of the crime after each was committed. Nobody else could possibly be at blame. Sure, Kara Danvers- _Kara Zor-El_ \- was special, but at what cost? When it meant being expelled from school, being known as a troublemaker at best and a destroyer at worst, was it really worth it?

She guessed so, as she found herself next at Metropolis High, in her cousin’s city. There, she’d found friends, a second family with whom came a sense of balance in her life. Not peace, necessarily, but these people- Barbara, Karen, Diana, Zee, and Jessica- were also gifted, also knew what it meant to live with two identities, navigating life among normal people and battles with supervillains. No longer was she alone, and no longer did she only have to talk with her parents (or not talk at all) about what she was dealing with. For a while, at least, everything was good, and she was able to build up her reputation as a hero- both alone, and with the rest of her team.

Now, she wasn’t just “Superman’s cousin”, or “Girl Superman”, or “Superman in a skirt”, or even “Super-bitch”, as she’d found herself referred to by graffiti once. She was Supergirl, for better or for worse, and she intended to keep it that way, making her name mean something, associated with goodness, and safety, and light.

The last thing she needed was for someone to drag it into darkness, as Kara Danvers’s name once had been, but just her luck, it happened anyway, in the form of a dark Supergirl wannabe who’d first attacked her school, then a myriad of locations all around the world, before going back to Metropolis.

Fitting, really, that the place Kara had once gone to find a new start in her life was also the place of Bizarro’s final stand. Bizarro had the upper hand against her, at first, and why wouldn’t she have? She, as far as Kara first knew, didn’t have anything to prove. She only had to fight against the person she thought was destroying _her_ reputation, and at the beginning she seemed stronger. It was easy for her to turn the tide against Supergirl, and to overpower her.

Which, incidentally, made Kara herself angry enough to fight back. As she faced Bizarro, she thought about anyone who’d ever called her names, or told her she was a bad person, or tried to fight her when she hadn’t done anything to them. She thought about Superman, and how disappointed he would be if she didn’t take down her own Bizarro, when he’d done so (probably) effortlessly. Then, when that wasn’t as motivating, she thought about her mother, facing down her own death once upon a time, and how proud of her she would’ve been if she was there to see her.

(of course, if she didn’t get out of this, she would join her mother, and her father, in Rao’s light. But she also had parents and a sister on Earth who she wanted to see after this, and that was another push of motivation as she felt her eyes burning from the pressure released by the super-flare, the sheer heat from such a blast making her feel like the rest of her had been set on fire too.)

But, as well as her parents and Superman, she thought about her friends. Babs, who was there watching the fight, ready to step in if anything went wrong, and the rest, who were probably busy at the moment but who would probably meet herself and Batgirl at Sweet Justice after they saw the fight on the news. She remembered how hard they had fought against Zod, even if at first it had been for nothing, and how they’d worked together against every other villain they had faced up until that point.

She wasn’t going to make that pointless, and definitely wasn’t going to leave her team without a Supergirl, especially when they probably had much more time left. She was going to beat Bizarro for them, and everyone she cared about, and that was well worth being powerless for a few days.

So when she could see again (a little bit, at least), and the smoke cleared, she saw Bizarro there, looking as defeated as she’d felt before now. Kara could barely move for a moment, but as the feeling came back to her body, as she fought through the pain that coursed through her, she was able to sit up and see Babs (always reliable- good to have by her side in any crisis) tying Bizarro up, making sure she wouldn’t be able to hurt anyone else.

Yet, even the Bizarro version of herself had feelings, and as she confessed tearfully, she had a mirrored version of Kara and Clark’s dynamic with Bizarro-Superman- as opposite as they were, as much as Bizarro-Supergirl had destroyed, there was no way Kara wouldn’t comfort her then.

Compassion for _all_ \- even evil doppelgangers who just wanted their own reputations to be as good as those of their evil cousin’s doppelganger.

So, with Kara’s powers gone (though, luckily, her super-appetite not) she and Bizarro-Kara soon found a commonality eating sundaes together at Sweet Justice, after the rest of the team pitched in to clean up the city. It didn’t make up for what had happened, or what Kara had to do to bring Bizarro-Kara down, but right then, Kara didn’t care, because she was finally going to get to relax.

And, after such a big event, her parents knew who else would cheer her up, were she to see them.

~  
“Kara?” Jessica asked, as she looked through the window. “Someone is here- should I let her in?”

“Who’s “her”?” Kara asked, lying on the couch.

“You do have X-ray vision, Kara. You could see for yourself.” Karen said.

“Yeah, but I don’t want to move right now. Why don’t you just tell me?”

“I’ve never seen her before.” Zee said. “But she has red hair, kind of in your haircut- kind of your aesthetic, come to think of it.”

Kara smiled, then, not needing X-ray vision to know exactly who was there to see her.

“Let her in.”

“Hi.” Alex said, greeting the superheroines who’d gathered there, surrounding her. “Alex Danvers, med student- but that’s not important right now. I’m here to see my sister, if you don’t mind.”

“OMG, Kara. You have a sister?” Babs asked, ready to ask her roughly a million questions.

“You never asked about her.” Kara answered, with a nonchalant wave of her hand. “Alex, you can come in. These are my friends.”

“And I didn’t know you had any friends.” Alex said, trying to move towards Kara, with the others blocking her and staring at her with great interest. “Not after what happened at-“

“We don’t need to mention that anymore.” Kara interrupted, knowing she’d have to tell her about what had really happened that day, as well as what had most recently happened to her. “The point is, now I have friends, and they’re great.”

“I can see that, by how they’re hovering over you. So, you said you lost your powers?”

“Yeah- super-flare. Clark says he’s done it a few times, but when I asked how he got his back, he told me to figure it out for myself. I think he’s testing me somehow.”

Alex smiled, sitting down by Kara’s side and squeezing her hand gently.

“Well, I think I have a way we can get them back just a little faster.”

“Really? I’d just _love_ to hear it.”


End file.
